Yes, the best educational institution in India is not an educational institution at all. It is industry.
Indian industry takes hundreds of thousands of graduates with a low-quality education, trains them, and makes them fit to do work that competes with the output of companies around the world.
Our industry is approaching world class, whereas the bulk of our education system is far below global standards.
World class Indian software companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys hire tens of thousands of engineers every year. There can be only so many IITians among them - and the typical quality is rather poor. As a web article puts it,"Nine half-literates are produced by our colleges, by Nasscom’s numbers, for every graduate of passable quality."
At Nagarro, we need high quality engineers because our projects are technically challenging. We find we need to scan 1000 resumes for every three hires!
Nagarro's final hires are typically very good (since we need to hire only a hundred or so each year), so I really have a lot of respect for the larger software companies who have to hire many more, far less capable candidates, and train them, teach them to code, teach them a work ethic, teach them to think, teach them to write, teach them to talk, and teach them to run projects.
The finished engineers command hourly rates of at least Rs. 1000 per hour! Talk of value addition!
The IT outsourcing and BPO revolution set off by these companies has given India a chance to modernize. It has helped build the country.
But it is highly ironical that even as the private sector is training tens or hundreds of thousands of people and making them fit for world class work, vested interests are trying their best to limit the participation of the private sector in formal education!
It is time for would-be students to stand up and ask for the right to a good education - even if it is to be provided by Reliance or Tata or Wipro in a "for-profit" mode.
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4 comments:
Hi Sir,
Really a very factful blogpost!
The things that you have mentioned about the companies trianing their employees(engineers) on each ground to stand and work seems really tiresome and wasteful. As these companies hire the employees in order to get results from start, training them from scratch pulls them back.It is the fault in our education system which leave the student just enough to get its position in the society.
I would also like to say that as educaiton is provided free upto a certain age, the Government machinery do not let it happen on regular basis. If these corporates would do the needful on "for profit" mode then too there will just enough people to afford it.
Thank You sir for your valuabe insights .
Regards
Proton Sanjay Dodeja
Hello Sir,
I fully agree that private institutions has to come up in this industry and some have already came up but what I personally feel that some fundamental changes are desperately required in our education system, right from the beginner's level.
But our political system(corruption & bureaucracy ) is a great barrier in the path of those fundamental changes.
Pankaj Gangwani
Spring 09
Respected Sir,
It is very true that our educational system is not robust But also having lacuna. Our industries spending enormous amount on the training of freshers. But why our industrialist are not come up and take responsibility of changing the educational system. They are spending on training for only those professionals who will work for them. If they really thinking that our educational system is not following the standards then why shouldn't they take initiative for reforms. They are leading India then why not helping Indian educational system, which will definitely change the whole scenario. So we are optimistically seeking toward changes of educational system by our great industrialist!
Regards
Shailendra
Spring 09
Dear Dr Manas
The criminally sad fact of education in India is that students themselves do not realise what is good for them! Many factors deter their maturing to understand.. and these are
i) stupid peer pressure - students who try doing sincere and sensible work, are deterred strongly by a peer group conditioned wrongly by vested interest groups of typical manistream university faculty
ii) inherent immaturity - the young age blinds our youth to a lot of wisdom that trainers can use to shape them up, hence the resistance (in many) to innovative pedagogical tools
iii) criminally insensitive University system - At least 50% of our mainstream University faculty will starve to death if left to fend for themselves in a pay-for-performance corporate sector. In fact, most of them have run away from there precisely because of this.
My heart cries when I see that otherwise sincere and bright school-passouts are turned into good-for-nothing 20 year olds by the Graduation colleges of India. Many students have themselves confided to me "Sir we were very sincere till our 12th... we turned into idiots once we joined the College.. and the system ensured we stayed that way".
In this backdrop, it is indeed a miracle (though forced by reality) that the Indian private sector has turned itself into the biggest University of Life.
No cheers :-(
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